Village officials hope vacant downtown storefronts soon will fill up with arts-themed businesses.
The village is set to launch its arts microenterprise and incubator project. Potsdam received $100,000 to launch the program several months ago as part of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s first award to the North Country Regional Economic Council.
Planning and Development Director Frederick J. Hanss said the funding hopefully will help launch up to eight to 10 arts-themed businesses.
“Potsdam has the reputation of being the arts and cultural capital of the north country,” Mr. Hanss said. “I hope it cements our reputation. ... I would hope it would make downtown Potsdam a more interesting place for visiting.”
The funding would be used as “seed money” for arts entrepreneurs to set up their business, Mr. Hanss said. An informational session will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Potsdam Civic Center Community Room. Those who cannot attend that meeting will have another chance at 7 p.m. April 24.
“We’ll walk them through the application process and the eligibility process,” Mr. Hanss said. “We’re being pretty open for eligible use of funds.”
The program will accept a wide variety of applicants, from an artist seeking to open a gallery, a potter who intends to sell products or a musician who repairs instruments, Mr. Hanss said.
“They have to present a body of work that’s original and innovative,” Mr. Hanss said. “We’re focused on new businesses. They’re the ones that typically need a leg up.”
A panel from the arts community will determine who can be admitted to the program, Mr. Hanss said. Applicants will have to complete a 10-week course to develop a business and marketing plan for their proposal before receiving any funding, which the village will distribute.
Discounted space in Clarkson University’s Old Snell Hall will serve as an “incubator” for successful applicants.
After a period of time, the businesses hopefully would move into downtown storefronts, Mr. Hanss said.
“Nobody has really applied it to this particular segment of the economy,” Mr. Hanss said. “I don’t think anyone has done this in rural parts of New York state.”
Mr. Hanss and Hillary Oak, executive director of the St. Lawrence County Arts Council, each have received five or six inquiries into the program over the last several months.
The program is co-sponsored by the village and the arts council.
Ms. Oak said the funding could be used to help reduce the business rent or pay for marketing expenses.
“If they have an interest in starting or expanding an arts-related business, these funds might help them,” Ms. Oak said. “We want to make sure businesses that use these funds are sustainable. As far as we know, this is the first microenterprise grant program geared specifically to the arts. Hopefully by next year, we’ll have some new businesses that have been given a boost by this program.”
Read article here.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
How National and Local Government Can Promote Entrepreneurship
David Teten, ff Venture Capital
David Teten is a Partner with ff Venture Capital and Chairman of Harvard Business School Angels New York.
I’ve recently met with several universities, nonprofits, and government employees who’ve all asked the same question: how can we promote entrepreneurship? Just like me, they’re distressed about the poor economy and jobs situation, which contrasts dramatically with the growth and tight labor market in the technology ecosystem. They’re concerned with this issue at both the local and national levels.
The first and primary role of a government is to provide basic public goods competently. Like many Americans, I’m disappointed that our government sometimes fails to do this. Above all, I’d like our friends in government and the policy world to figure out how the US government can deliver what it’s supposed to but sometimes doesn’t: sound money; an affordable budget; effective education; functioning infrastructure (e.g. airports, less-intrusive airport security); functional legal system (tort reform); logical immigration reform; and a functional tax system (tax simplification). To Mayor Bloomberg’s credit, he is using his bully pulpit for exactly this purpose, e.g., decrying US immigration policy as ‘national suicide’. Sadly, he doesn’t control our immigration policy.
There are a range of organizations that help address issues in the technology ecosystem, including: Women in Technology, Technology Policy Institute, New York Technology Council and various other state technology councils, Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies, Information Technology Industry Council, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and Tech Policy Central. I support their goals of making entrepreneurship accessible to those who have the ingredients to become a successful self-starter. Like virtually the entire tech industry, I am particularly in favor of Startup Visa, which has the goal of stimulating our domestic startup community through acts to keep our foreign-born entrepreneurs in the United States.
Following is a list of some of the ideas I’ve working on (to various extents). If you see something that piques your interest and want to get involved, please contact me. I have ranked this list in ascending order of cost (defined as combined time and money).
- Educating the VC/angel community on the city/state resources available to them to build companies. I’ll likely organize a Harvard Business School Angels of NY event on this topic in 2012.
- Studying best practices of VCs in supporting portfolio company operational improvement. I am now leading a Columbia MBA team (ex-Mckinsey and BCG) on a study regarding best practices of VCs in supporting portfolio company operational improvement. This is effectively a sequel to my study of best practices in deal origination, published in the Journal of Private Equity, Harvard Business Review, Institutional Investor, and Business Insider. You can see preliminary results of this value creation study here.
- Encouraging non-US companies to set up operations in the US.As the former CEO of an Israeli startup with a (modest) US and UK presence, this is an obvious way to create more jobs here.
- Creating angel groups with other alumni organizations, using HBS Angels as a model, e.g., alumni of major NY schools (Columbia, NYU) and institutions (McKinsey, Goldman Sachs). I’ve talked informally with some universities about doing exactly this. -
Creating a for-profit business with the goal of helping students conduct research projects for businesses, so that they’re more connected with potential employers. I wrote a blog poston this.
- Organizing events for local mid- to large-company CIOs / CEOs to meet technology startups, in order to help startups get traction and keep their momentum going. HBS Angels will likely execute this in 2012.
- Publishing notes on local tech events. New York has an extremely active Meet-up culture; almost every night there are 3-10 tech-focused events. However, no one systematically provides notes/videos of these events. Here’s a win-win way to address this: recruit a team of students who would attend these events and publish their transcripts/videos, so that everyone learns more and faster and can network more easily. I’m already doing this on an experimental basis on my blog.
- Publishing joint research. See ffvc.com/topicsfor a full list of topics we want to research. Part of our strategy as a VC is to do in-depth research on the questions that interest us, in order to make us smarter and to help improve industry best practices. We typically do this by partnering with graduate student teams. In particular, we think it would be helpful to the ecosystem if someone were to publish research on who are the most active and most successful New York-area angels, superangels, and early-stage VCs, in order to identify the leaders with whom entrepreneurs should most want to work. (it is likely that ‘active’ and ‘successful’ are not synonymous.)
- Creating a master operating checklist for New York entrepreneurs. Visualize a grid, with the standard entrepreneurial steps down the y-axis (ideation, market research, incorporation, etc.), and the major New York industries across the X-axis (internet, food, retail, fashion, etc.). It would be valuable to have checklists for all of the intersections in this grid. We’ve created some but not all of these checklists for the tech industry; see our presentation notes and links on our resources page. Other useful checklists we’ve identified include Biztree, Wickedstart, Goodwin Founders Workbench, American Express Open Forum Crash Courses, StartupToDo , Entrepreneurcountry, and StartupPlays.
- Organizing angel pitch nights focused on special-interest communities, including industries (healthcare, retail, fashion) and affinity groups(Women, Asian-American, Latino, LGBT, African-American). I am now talking with some affinity groups in these domains about co-organizing such pitch nights under the umbrella of HBS Angels. Our goal is to source and fund great entrepreneurs, regardless of personal or industry background. We are planning a healthcare-focused evening on February 29, and are working on an evening focused on African-American entrepreneurs and on the mobility sector. Details to come.
Here are some much more ambitious and expensive ideas:
- Setting up a ‘virtual seastead’, perhaps on UN headquarters territory, for high-quality entrepreneurs who do not have US visas. A team in California is already creating a offshore seastead for non-US citizens who want to build companies in the US. The UN headquarters in New York is technically located on ‘international territory’. I’m sure there are already some for-profit businesses there, e.g., restaurants. I wonder if it is possible to set up an apartment building near UN HQ as a virtual seastead? I’m unclear whether this legal arbitrage is possible. Is anyone else looking into this?
- Launching a seastead acceleratoroffshore from New York.
Read more: http://www.teten.com/blog/2012/02/02/how-national-and-local-government-can-promote-entrepreneurship/#ixzz1lKvpNxR4
David Teten is a Partner with ff Venture Capital and Chairman of Harvard Business School Angels New York.
I’ve recently met with several universities, nonprofits, and government employees who’ve all asked the same question: how can we promote entrepreneurship? Just like me, they’re distressed about the poor economy and jobs situation, which contrasts dramatically with the growth and tight labor market in the technology ecosystem. They’re concerned with this issue at both the local and national levels.
The first and primary role of a government is to provide basic public goods competently. Like many Americans, I’m disappointed that our government sometimes fails to do this. Above all, I’d like our friends in government and the policy world to figure out how the US government can deliver what it’s supposed to but sometimes doesn’t: sound money; an affordable budget; effective education; functioning infrastructure (e.g. airports, less-intrusive airport security); functional legal system (tort reform); logical immigration reform; and a functional tax system (tax simplification). To Mayor Bloomberg’s credit, he is using his bully pulpit for exactly this purpose, e.g., decrying US immigration policy as ‘national suicide’. Sadly, he doesn’t control our immigration policy.
There are a range of organizations that help address issues in the technology ecosystem, including: Women in Technology, Technology Policy Institute, New York Technology Council and various other state technology councils, Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies, Information Technology Industry Council, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and Tech Policy Central. I support their goals of making entrepreneurship accessible to those who have the ingredients to become a successful self-starter. Like virtually the entire tech industry, I am particularly in favor of Startup Visa, which has the goal of stimulating our domestic startup community through acts to keep our foreign-born entrepreneurs in the United States.
Following is a list of some of the ideas I’ve working on (to various extents). If you see something that piques your interest and want to get involved, please contact me. I have ranked this list in ascending order of cost (defined as combined time and money).
- Educating the VC/angel community on the city/state resources available to them to build companies. I’ll likely organize a Harvard Business School Angels of NY event on this topic in 2012.
- Studying best practices of VCs in supporting portfolio company operational improvement. I am now leading a Columbia MBA team (ex-Mckinsey and BCG) on a study regarding best practices of VCs in supporting portfolio company operational improvement. This is effectively a sequel to my study of best practices in deal origination, published in the Journal of Private Equity, Harvard Business Review, Institutional Investor, and Business Insider. You can see preliminary results of this value creation study here.
- Encouraging non-US companies to set up operations in the US.As the former CEO of an Israeli startup with a (modest) US and UK presence, this is an obvious way to create more jobs here.
- Creating angel groups with other alumni organizations, using HBS Angels as a model, e.g., alumni of major NY schools (Columbia, NYU) and institutions (McKinsey, Goldman Sachs). I’ve talked informally with some universities about doing exactly this. -
Creating a for-profit business with the goal of helping students conduct research projects for businesses, so that they’re more connected with potential employers. I wrote a blog poston this.
- Organizing events for local mid- to large-company CIOs / CEOs to meet technology startups, in order to help startups get traction and keep their momentum going. HBS Angels will likely execute this in 2012.
- Publishing notes on local tech events. New York has an extremely active Meet-up culture; almost every night there are 3-10 tech-focused events. However, no one systematically provides notes/videos of these events. Here’s a win-win way to address this: recruit a team of students who would attend these events and publish their transcripts/videos, so that everyone learns more and faster and can network more easily. I’m already doing this on an experimental basis on my blog.
- Publishing joint research. See ffvc.com/topicsfor a full list of topics we want to research. Part of our strategy as a VC is to do in-depth research on the questions that interest us, in order to make us smarter and to help improve industry best practices. We typically do this by partnering with graduate student teams. In particular, we think it would be helpful to the ecosystem if someone were to publish research on who are the most active and most successful New York-area angels, superangels, and early-stage VCs, in order to identify the leaders with whom entrepreneurs should most want to work. (it is likely that ‘active’ and ‘successful’ are not synonymous.)
- Creating a master operating checklist for New York entrepreneurs. Visualize a grid, with the standard entrepreneurial steps down the y-axis (ideation, market research, incorporation, etc.), and the major New York industries across the X-axis (internet, food, retail, fashion, etc.). It would be valuable to have checklists for all of the intersections in this grid. We’ve created some but not all of these checklists for the tech industry; see our presentation notes and links on our resources page. Other useful checklists we’ve identified include Biztree, Wickedstart, Goodwin Founders Workbench, American Express Open Forum Crash Courses, StartupToDo , Entrepreneurcountry, and StartupPlays.
- Organizing angel pitch nights focused on special-interest communities, including industries (healthcare, retail, fashion) and affinity groups(Women, Asian-American, Latino, LGBT, African-American). I am now talking with some affinity groups in these domains about co-organizing such pitch nights under the umbrella of HBS Angels. Our goal is to source and fund great entrepreneurs, regardless of personal or industry background. We are planning a healthcare-focused evening on February 29, and are working on an evening focused on African-American entrepreneurs and on the mobility sector. Details to come.
Here are some much more ambitious and expensive ideas:
- Setting up a ‘virtual seastead’, perhaps on UN headquarters territory, for high-quality entrepreneurs who do not have US visas. A team in California is already creating a offshore seastead for non-US citizens who want to build companies in the US. The UN headquarters in New York is technically located on ‘international territory’. I’m sure there are already some for-profit businesses there, e.g., restaurants. I wonder if it is possible to set up an apartment building near UN HQ as a virtual seastead? I’m unclear whether this legal arbitrage is possible. Is anyone else looking into this?
- Launching a seastead acceleratoroffshore from New York.
Read more: http://www.teten.com/blog/2012/02/02/how-national-and-local-government-can-promote-entrepreneurship/#ixzz1lKvpNxR4
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
PETA to launch porn site in name of animal rights
Nonprofit to launch a porn site? Not a headline one would expect to see, but definitely an attention-grabbing one. More interestingly then the generated pr or crtiticisms and rolled eyes with this recent PETA action is the business impact of this idea. This does seem to have an entrepreneurial nature to it, but definitely not something to hang your hat on. It is worth looking at as a case study, but don't take this as a recommendation for visiting PETA's new .xxx domain.
As the article relates:
An animal rights group, which is no stranger to attention-grabbing campaigns featuring nude women, plans to launch a pornography website to raise awareness about veganism.
The nonprofit organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) whose controversial campaigns draw criticism from women's rights groups, said it hopes to publicize veganism through a mix of pornography and graphic footage of animal suffering.
"We're hoping to reach a whole new audience of people, some of whom will be shocked by graphic images that maybe they didn't anticipate seeing when they went to the PETA triple-X site," said Lindsay Rajt, PETA's associate director of campaigns.
PETA has been accused of campaigning for animal rights at the cost of exploiting women. A Facebook group, Real Women Against PETA, was launched after the organization paid for a billboard showing an obese woman with the message: "Save the Whales. Lose the Blubber. Go Vegetarian."
Another critical Facebook group is called, "Vegans (and Vegetarians) Against PETA."
"PETA is extremely disingenuous," said Jennifer Pozner, executive director of the New York-based advocacy group Women In Media & News. "They have consistently used active sexism as their marketing strategy to garner attention. Their use of sexism has gotten more extreme and more degrading.
"This may be in their minds the only thing left at their disposal to lower the bar," she said.
PETA has filed paperwork to launch its pornography site when the controversial new .xxx domain becomes active in early December. While many nonprofits and corporations are scrambling to protect their website names from being hijacked by a pornographer slapping on a .xxx domain, PETA is embracing the new domain as just another way to conduct business.
"We try to use every outlet that we can to speak up for animals," Rajt said. "We anticipated that this new triple-X domain name would be a hot topic and we immediately decided to use it and take advantage of it to try to promote the animal rights message."
Jill Dolan, director of the program in gender and sexuality studies at Princeton University, was critical of the PETA campaigns.
"Exploiting porn to get people's juices going seems lame; exploiting pornographic images only of women to make their point is retrograde and misogynist," Dolan said in an email. "Come on, PETA. Don't be Neanderthals."
Rajt denied that PETA has been insensitive to women.
"Our demonstrators, the models, all chose to participate in our campaigns . . . It's not a very feminist thing to do to turn to women and tell them whether or not they can use their voices, their bodies to express their voice."
Visitors to the X-rated site will initially be presented with pornographic content as well as images from PETA's salacious ads and campaigns, Rajt said. Those images will be followed by pictures and video shot undercover of the mistreatment of animals. The site will also include links to vegetarian and vegan — using no animal products — starter kits as well as recipes.
PETA's ad campaigns have featured adult film stars Sasha Grey, Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jameson. In 2008, the organization's YouTube account was temporarily shut down after showing racy videos of celebrities and others posing nude.
"When people first visit the site, it will be very enticing and once they go just a little bit deeper, that's when they'll be confronted with images that we hope will make them stop and think and get them talking and hopefully encourage them to make a lifestyle change to a plant-based diet," Rajt said.
Read more: http://www.windsorstar.com/news/PETA+launch+porn+site+name+animal+rights/5424516/story.html#ixzz1YVNCq8aG
As the article relates:
An animal rights group, which is no stranger to attention-grabbing campaigns featuring nude women, plans to launch a pornography website to raise awareness about veganism.
The nonprofit organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) whose controversial campaigns draw criticism from women's rights groups, said it hopes to publicize veganism through a mix of pornography and graphic footage of animal suffering.
"We're hoping to reach a whole new audience of people, some of whom will be shocked by graphic images that maybe they didn't anticipate seeing when they went to the PETA triple-X site," said Lindsay Rajt, PETA's associate director of campaigns.
PETA has been accused of campaigning for animal rights at the cost of exploiting women. A Facebook group, Real Women Against PETA, was launched after the organization paid for a billboard showing an obese woman with the message: "Save the Whales. Lose the Blubber. Go Vegetarian."
Another critical Facebook group is called, "Vegans (and Vegetarians) Against PETA."
"PETA is extremely disingenuous," said Jennifer Pozner, executive director of the New York-based advocacy group Women In Media & News. "They have consistently used active sexism as their marketing strategy to garner attention. Their use of sexism has gotten more extreme and more degrading.
"This may be in their minds the only thing left at their disposal to lower the bar," she said.
PETA has filed paperwork to launch its pornography site when the controversial new .xxx domain becomes active in early December. While many nonprofits and corporations are scrambling to protect their website names from being hijacked by a pornographer slapping on a .xxx domain, PETA is embracing the new domain as just another way to conduct business.
"We try to use every outlet that we can to speak up for animals," Rajt said. "We anticipated that this new triple-X domain name would be a hot topic and we immediately decided to use it and take advantage of it to try to promote the animal rights message."
Jill Dolan, director of the program in gender and sexuality studies at Princeton University, was critical of the PETA campaigns.
"Exploiting porn to get people's juices going seems lame; exploiting pornographic images only of women to make their point is retrograde and misogynist," Dolan said in an email. "Come on, PETA. Don't be Neanderthals."
Rajt denied that PETA has been insensitive to women.
"Our demonstrators, the models, all chose to participate in our campaigns . . . It's not a very feminist thing to do to turn to women and tell them whether or not they can use their voices, their bodies to express their voice."
Visitors to the X-rated site will initially be presented with pornographic content as well as images from PETA's salacious ads and campaigns, Rajt said. Those images will be followed by pictures and video shot undercover of the mistreatment of animals. The site will also include links to vegetarian and vegan — using no animal products — starter kits as well as recipes.
PETA's ad campaigns have featured adult film stars Sasha Grey, Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jameson. In 2008, the organization's YouTube account was temporarily shut down after showing racy videos of celebrities and others posing nude.
"When people first visit the site, it will be very enticing and once they go just a little bit deeper, that's when they'll be confronted with images that we hope will make them stop and think and get them talking and hopefully encourage them to make a lifestyle change to a plant-based diet," Rajt said.
Read more: http://www.windsorstar.com/news/PETA+launch+porn+site+name+animal+rights/5424516/story.html#ixzz1YVNCq8aG
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Philanthro-teens delving into nonprofit world
Crain's New York Business reported that kids raise the bar on giving with Facebook fundraisers, even their own foundations.
When Shannon McNamara was 13, her parents took her and her siblings to Peru during summer vacation to volunteer in an orphanage.
“At the beginning of the trip, I was thinking, 'Why can't I be on a cruise ship instead?' ” said Ms. McNamara, now 17 and a senior in high school in Basking Ridge, N.J. But the experience was “worth more than any cruise or trip to Disneyland could give you,” she said.
The family took a similar trip to Africa three years ago, and Ms. McNamara started her own nonprofit, Share (Shannon's After-School Reading Exchange), shortly after to help educate African girls. She has since volunteered in Tanzania every summer, and has collected 23,000 books and shipped them to schools there. She has also begun raising money for scholarships.
Meet the teen philanthropists. Armed with new technology and an awareness of global issues, post-Millennials are engaging in social entrepreneurship in previously unimaginable ways. Though still materialistic, these teens and even preteens want to do something more significant than acquire the latest i-Pod Touch or Wii.
Looking for a purpose
Borrowing from trends in celebrity charity, kids are mobilizing their peers to address everything from infant mortality in developing nations to neighborhood concerns. They're donating presents to charity, and they're establishing their own nonprofits.
“The number of kids creating their own organizations and taking action for causes they care about is skyrocketing,” said Nancy Lublin, chief executive of DoSomething.org, a New York-based nonprofit that helps young people to engage in philanthropy.
“Kids today just saw their parents go through a recession, get laid off and struggle,” Ms. Lublin said. “They look around and say: 'What's the point? I don't just want a second car in my driveway. I want a life of purpose.' ”
In the past year, 79% of girls in the United States have contributed food or clothing, 53% have given their own money, and 66% have asked family or friends to give or volunteer, according to research commissioned by the United Nations Foundation.
READ MORE HERE.
When Shannon McNamara was 13, her parents took her and her siblings to Peru during summer vacation to volunteer in an orphanage.
“At the beginning of the trip, I was thinking, 'Why can't I be on a cruise ship instead?' ” said Ms. McNamara, now 17 and a senior in high school in Basking Ridge, N.J. But the experience was “worth more than any cruise or trip to Disneyland could give you,” she said.
The family took a similar trip to Africa three years ago, and Ms. McNamara started her own nonprofit, Share (Shannon's After-School Reading Exchange), shortly after to help educate African girls. She has since volunteered in Tanzania every summer, and has collected 23,000 books and shipped them to schools there. She has also begun raising money for scholarships.
Meet the teen philanthropists. Armed with new technology and an awareness of global issues, post-Millennials are engaging in social entrepreneurship in previously unimaginable ways. Though still materialistic, these teens and even preteens want to do something more significant than acquire the latest i-Pod Touch or Wii.
Looking for a purpose
Borrowing from trends in celebrity charity, kids are mobilizing their peers to address everything from infant mortality in developing nations to neighborhood concerns. They're donating presents to charity, and they're establishing their own nonprofits.
“The number of kids creating their own organizations and taking action for causes they care about is skyrocketing,” said Nancy Lublin, chief executive of DoSomething.org, a New York-based nonprofit that helps young people to engage in philanthropy.
“Kids today just saw their parents go through a recession, get laid off and struggle,” Ms. Lublin said. “They look around and say: 'What's the point? I don't just want a second car in my driveway. I want a life of purpose.' ”
In the past year, 79% of girls in the United States have contributed food or clothing, 53% have given their own money, and 66% have asked family or friends to give or volunteer, according to research commissioned by the United Nations Foundation.
READ MORE HERE.
Monday, December 20, 2010
New Start Up Resource
The name Wicked Start, while irreverent and fun, is also a play on a slang definition of “wicked,” meaning masterful. A "wicked start" is a masterful way of starting a business. At Wicked Start, we believe entrepreneurs and small business owners are on the forefront of business today, leading change and innovation with great ideas.
Starting a business is one of the biggest decisions that you will ever make, and it can be as daunting as it is exciting. To be successful, you must take lots of personal, financial and planning considerations into account. At Wicked Start, our objective is to combine a practical, manageable business approach with a dose of “heart” to manage these considerations during the entire start-up process. This “heart” is compassion, which plays an instrumental role in how you create, drive and build a successful business on based on principles, integrity, and best practices. By injecting compassion into your solutions, you will find a healthier business in the long term and a healthier bottom line.
Starting a business is one of the biggest decisions that you will ever make, and it can be as daunting as it is exciting. To be successful, you must take lots of personal, financial and planning considerations into account. At Wicked Start, our objective is to combine a practical, manageable business approach with a dose of “heart” to manage these considerations during the entire start-up process. This “heart” is compassion, which plays an instrumental role in how you create, drive and build a successful business on based on principles, integrity, and best practices. By injecting compassion into your solutions, you will find a healthier business in the long term and a healthier bottom line.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
For Artists’ Fund-Raising, a Social Network Site
The NY Times featured an article about United States Artists, a nonprofit group founded by foundations and wealthy art donors to broaden support for working artists, and their new Web site that solicits small donations from regular people to help underwrite specific artworks.
Part social network, part glossy brochure, part fund-raising mechanism, the site seeks to democratize arts patronage as government support for the arts continues to decline and private sources of financing also shrink.
“What we’ve tried to do is take the good ideas about microphilanthropy and the good ideas about social networking and put them together in a way that people can learn about artists and learn about their projects and how they work,” said Katharine DeShaw, the organization’s executive director.
In testing, the Web site attracted roughly 36,000 unique visitors and raised a total of $210,000, with an average of $120 from each of 1,500 small donors, Ms. DeShaw said.
Artists like Zoe Strauss, a photographer, who have received United States Artists grants in the past were asked to participate in the test, and 47 did so. Ms. Strauss sought $4,000 for a project to document the effects of the BP oil spill on the Gulf Coast and its people, and to make a book of her photographs.
Ms. Strauss said about fund-raising, “I would rather have someone stab me in the face.” She added, “I’m totally unskilled in how to hustle money and totally repulsed by the idea of asking people for it, so this site was a dream come true for me.”
She ended up raising $5,185, which is helping her make additional trips to the region to take more photos. “I probably would have had to stop at the one trip I made because I couldn’t afford anymore,” she said. “By making one or two more trips down there, I will have much more to choose from for the book.”
Ms. Strauss said she also appreciated the social networking aspects of the site. “I work very much by myself, and so the ability to talk back and forth with other artists and see how they go about raising money and talking about their work is great.”
Thomas Allen Harris worried it might be too much work. But he decided he could use the test to raise money for a documentary that grew out of his work on Digital Diaspora Family Reunion, a multimedia project that asks blacks to share their family photos as a means of broadening the historic record of the black experience in America. As part of that project, he interviewed Byron Rushing, a Massachusetts legislator who had played a pivotal role in the state’s debate over gay marriage, and saw a way of tying that issue to the civil rights movement in a film.
Using the new Web site and other resources, Mr. Harris raised $11,600, 16 percent more than he had sought, to pay for archival materials, a composer and other postproduction costs.
“In first week or two, all I raised was $25, and I started wondering what would happen if people started thinking about this as a failure,” Mr. Harris said. “I’m used to sharing my creative process, but sharing how I’m actually raising money in such a public way introduces another level of vulnerability.”
Bill Frisell, a jazzss guitarist, said he, too, was uncomfortable with so publicly soliciting money. “I’m not rich but I make a living, and so for me to say, ‘Please, please, please give me money,’ it felt a little embarrassing,” Mr. Frisell said. “I had to get over that.”
He raised $20,300 through the new site, which will be used to complete a program called “The Great Flood,” a suite of original music composed by Mr. Frisell and accompanied by a film by Bill Morrison about the Mississippi River flood in 1927 and its effect on society and music.
The money will enable him to take the band that will perform the music on a tour along the Mississippi River. “We’ll play in various places,” Mr. Frisell said, “set up on the street and play or get smaller gigs that wouldn’t pay enough to cover expenses without this money.”
Ms. Strauss, Mr. Harris and Mr. Frisell say they anticipate that the kind of incremental fund-raising on the site will become more and more important to sustaining art. Mr. Frisell said, “We have to try new things.”
Part social network, part glossy brochure, part fund-raising mechanism, the site seeks to democratize arts patronage as government support for the arts continues to decline and private sources of financing also shrink.
“What we’ve tried to do is take the good ideas about microphilanthropy and the good ideas about social networking and put them together in a way that people can learn about artists and learn about their projects and how they work,” said Katharine DeShaw, the organization’s executive director.
In testing, the Web site attracted roughly 36,000 unique visitors and raised a total of $210,000, with an average of $120 from each of 1,500 small donors, Ms. DeShaw said.
Artists like Zoe Strauss, a photographer, who have received United States Artists grants in the past were asked to participate in the test, and 47 did so. Ms. Strauss sought $4,000 for a project to document the effects of the BP oil spill on the Gulf Coast and its people, and to make a book of her photographs.
Ms. Strauss said about fund-raising, “I would rather have someone stab me in the face.” She added, “I’m totally unskilled in how to hustle money and totally repulsed by the idea of asking people for it, so this site was a dream come true for me.”
She ended up raising $5,185, which is helping her make additional trips to the region to take more photos. “I probably would have had to stop at the one trip I made because I couldn’t afford anymore,” she said. “By making one or two more trips down there, I will have much more to choose from for the book.”
Ms. Strauss said she also appreciated the social networking aspects of the site. “I work very much by myself, and so the ability to talk back and forth with other artists and see how they go about raising money and talking about their work is great.”
Thomas Allen Harris worried it might be too much work. But he decided he could use the test to raise money for a documentary that grew out of his work on Digital Diaspora Family Reunion, a multimedia project that asks blacks to share their family photos as a means of broadening the historic record of the black experience in America. As part of that project, he interviewed Byron Rushing, a Massachusetts legislator who had played a pivotal role in the state’s debate over gay marriage, and saw a way of tying that issue to the civil rights movement in a film.
Using the new Web site and other resources, Mr. Harris raised $11,600, 16 percent more than he had sought, to pay for archival materials, a composer and other postproduction costs.
“In first week or two, all I raised was $25, and I started wondering what would happen if people started thinking about this as a failure,” Mr. Harris said. “I’m used to sharing my creative process, but sharing how I’m actually raising money in such a public way introduces another level of vulnerability.”
Bill Frisell, a jazzss guitarist, said he, too, was uncomfortable with so publicly soliciting money. “I’m not rich but I make a living, and so for me to say, ‘Please, please, please give me money,’ it felt a little embarrassing,” Mr. Frisell said. “I had to get over that.”
He raised $20,300 through the new site, which will be used to complete a program called “The Great Flood,” a suite of original music composed by Mr. Frisell and accompanied by a film by Bill Morrison about the Mississippi River flood in 1927 and its effect on society and music.
The money will enable him to take the band that will perform the music on a tour along the Mississippi River. “We’ll play in various places,” Mr. Frisell said, “set up on the street and play or get smaller gigs that wouldn’t pay enough to cover expenses without this money.”
Ms. Strauss, Mr. Harris and Mr. Frisell say they anticipate that the kind of incremental fund-raising on the site will become more and more important to sustaining art. Mr. Frisell said, “We have to try new things.”
Helping 1,000 startups in 2,000 days
Veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur Martin Babinec is looking for an Albany-area university to team up with him.
Babinec, of Little Falls, N.Y., founded Upstate Venture Connect in January and already has partnered with Cornell University, Syracuse University and LeMoyne College in Central New York to make it easier for technology startups to succeed.
Babinec formed UVC with a goal of helping entrepreneurs team up with advisers and find access to investors to increase their odds of survival. UVC seeks to help create 1,000 technology startups in upstate New York over the next 2,000 days.
“For entrepreneurs to get connected here is extremely difficult,” Babinec said.
UVC, a nonprofit, is developing a database and social network for mentors, advisers, startup companies, incubators and investors.
Teaming up with upstate universities to create a network of resources to help entrepreneurs solve funding, marketing, sales and commercialization problems is a key that Babinec said will help upstate encourage the development of more startup companies.
The resident of Herkimer County, N.Y., spent 22 years building TriNet HR Corp., a San Leandro, Calif.-based human resources outsourcing company, into a national firm with $200 million in annual revenue and more than 2,800 clients in the Unites States.
Babinec, who remains on the TriNet board and is the second-largest shareholder of the private company, said he is dedicating the next 10 years to bringing some of Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurship culture to upstate New York.
UVC is run by Nasir Ali, president of The Tech Garden in Syracuse.
Last month, UVC opened an office in Saratoga Springs. Greg Gibson, an entrepreneur who moved to Saratoga Springs from Boston two years ago, is running the local office.
“Upstate has many of the assets necessary to build an innovation-oriented economy,” Babinec said. They include 113 universities and colleges, roughly 500,000 students who attract more than $3 billion in research funding each year.
Those assets are spread out and do not work together as much as they should.
By partnering with universities throughout upstate, Babinec said he hopes to start changing the entrepreneurship culture here.
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Read more: Helping 1,000 startups in 2,000 days The Business Review
Babinec, of Little Falls, N.Y., founded Upstate Venture Connect in January and already has partnered with Cornell University, Syracuse University and LeMoyne College in Central New York to make it easier for technology startups to succeed.
Babinec formed UVC with a goal of helping entrepreneurs team up with advisers and find access to investors to increase their odds of survival. UVC seeks to help create 1,000 technology startups in upstate New York over the next 2,000 days.
“For entrepreneurs to get connected here is extremely difficult,” Babinec said.
UVC, a nonprofit, is developing a database and social network for mentors, advisers, startup companies, incubators and investors.
Teaming up with upstate universities to create a network of resources to help entrepreneurs solve funding, marketing, sales and commercialization problems is a key that Babinec said will help upstate encourage the development of more startup companies.
The resident of Herkimer County, N.Y., spent 22 years building TriNet HR Corp., a San Leandro, Calif.-based human resources outsourcing company, into a national firm with $200 million in annual revenue and more than 2,800 clients in the Unites States.
Babinec, who remains on the TriNet board and is the second-largest shareholder of the private company, said he is dedicating the next 10 years to bringing some of Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurship culture to upstate New York.
UVC is run by Nasir Ali, president of The Tech Garden in Syracuse.
Last month, UVC opened an office in Saratoga Springs. Greg Gibson, an entrepreneur who moved to Saratoga Springs from Boston two years ago, is running the local office.
“Upstate has many of the assets necessary to build an innovation-oriented economy,” Babinec said. They include 113 universities and colleges, roughly 500,000 students who attract more than $3 billion in research funding each year.
Those assets are spread out and do not work together as much as they should.
By partnering with universities throughout upstate, Babinec said he hopes to start changing the entrepreneurship culture here.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
..
Read more: Helping 1,000 startups in 2,000 days The Business Review
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